


Odin's Hanging Tree

by damndonnergirls



Series: May the Gods Be Ever In Your Favor [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Early Medieval, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Vikings, Banners & Icons, Cover Art, Dark Ages, Embedded Images, Europe, F/M, First Meetings, Middle Ages, Monks, Multiple Religion & Lore Sources, Norse, Prequel, Priests, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Religion, Scandinavia, Shieldmaidens, Vikings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 06:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5774374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damndonnergirls/pseuds/damndonnergirls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Your god hanged on a tree," Katnisse observes. "Like Odin." </p><p>Peeta shakes his head. "No," he says. "Not like Odin." </p><p>Four months after his capture, a young monk encounters Viking shieldmaiden-in-training Katnisse Eyvindsdottir. An Everlark prelude to <em><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660476/chapters/13037581">Enthralled</a></em>, written for <b>Winter in Panem</b> and <b>Yuletide in Panem</b> on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Odin's Hanging Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on the **Winter in Panem** Tumblr blog on December 28, 2015.

  


At the first cold light of dawn, Katnisse Eyvindsdottir slings her bow across her back, straps on her skis, and prepares for her journey to the jarl's house.

"Betony leaves, dill blossoms," her sister, Prim, murmurs as she checks Katnisse's pack. "Mistletoe."

It is only Prim's twelfth winter, yet her gift for healing already surpasses Katnisse's own. Nevertheless, Katnisse questions the merits of the weed taking up precious space in her rucksack. "Mistletoe?"

"The Saxons use it," Prim tells her. "Peeta says so."

"Who is Peeta?" To Katnisse's ears it is a strange name, and on her tongue it feels stranger still.

"Haymið and Eyfri's new thrall. We spoke, when Mother and I last visited their hall."

Katnisse thinks back to the harvest feast, and remembers a foreign slave with flaxen hair cut in a strange fashion. "Is he a Christian priest?"

"Yes. The one they captured from the kingdom of Panym last summer. The handsome one, with the blue eyes."

 _Astonishingly blue._ Katnisse dismisses the thought and scowls at her younger sister. "Does Róry know about this man you find so handsome?" Róry Hallvardson, the boy who had Prim's heart, and Gæl's younger brother.

Prim giggles. "Yes, but what does it matter? Róry has no reason to be jealous of Peeta. Not now, not ever."

"I suppose you are right." No male thrall, however handsome, could ever hope to be with a freeborn girl, though the reverse was common enough. And was it not true that some of these priests—the ones who shaved their heads and spent their days in prayer—were not allowed to marry? No, this Peeta would not be a rival to Róry Hallvardson. Not now, not ever.

Another thought occurs to her. "Is it wise to use Christian medicine? Jó says each time the Christians worship, they eat the body of their god and drink his blood."

"It is not Christian; it is an old remedy, from the time when the Saxons worshipped the same gods as we do." Prim smiles. "Was Jó eating her mushrooms, as she was telling you this?"

Katnisse feels compelled to defend her berserker friend whose reputation precedes her. "No, in fact, she was not." Jórunnr was _not_ in one of her mushroom-trances at the time, though she was certainly drunk. But that is not something Prim needs to know.

It is time to go. Prim rises up on her toes and kisses her sister's cheek. "Safe travels, Katnisse. Tell Peeta I said hello."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Peeta holds a rag to the wound on his leg. In the space of two heartbeats, the yellowed homespun blooms red with blood. He grimaces, not from the pain, but from the worry that it might stain. He mutters a quick prayer of thanks that none of Eyfri's precious silks from the Far East were within his reach. No amount of water mixed with stale urine would restore the original beauty of such a delicate fabric once it was bloodied.

As for Peeta's attacker, he would not escape unpunished. Then again, his attacker was all of six years old.

"You are not to harm the thralls," Eyfri, the jarl's wife, scolds her young son. "We need them to help around the hall. Or would you rather have as many chores as the other children do?"

Svein pushes his toe into the straw strewn on the dirt floor. "We were only playing."

His father, the chieftain of Tolv, is himself angry, but for a different reason. "I gave you a new knife so you might learn to use it properly," Haymið jarl says sternly. "Have you already forgotten your first lesson?"

Svein lowers his head shamefully. He is standing in the center of the hall, under the smoke-hole, and his pale blond hair gleams white under the weak sunlight. "No, Father," he answers, his little voice so soft that Peeta can barely hear him.

"Tell me, then. What is the most important thing you must remember, if you are ever to become a warrior and fight in the shield wall with honor?"

Svein recites the words mournfully. "Know who your enemy is."

His lower lip sticking out, the little boy adds: "But Father, Peeta is a priest, and a Saxon."

"Peeta," Haymið says, "is your friend."

"Ubbe says our warriors kill the Saxons and steal from their priests," Svein says, a hint of stubbornness creeping into his voice. "If some of them are not our enemies, why are they not all our friends?"

Haymið sighs and passes a hand over his face at the mention of his eight-year-old son, and Svein's older brother. Ubbe and Svein have inherited their father's inquiring mind, and for this the jarl is proud, but sometimes it is more trouble than it is worth.

"We do what we must to survive," he says wearily. "Would that we did not need to."

Peeta knows that, at times like these, Haymið does so wish for a daughter. Then again, any daughter of the jarl's would be even more cunning and clever.

There is a knock on the door.

The other thralls are otherwise preoccupied. Haymið glances at Peeta's leg; the wound is not too deep. "See who that is," the jarl instructs him gruffly. "I am expecting Katnisse Eyvindsdottir."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Peeta has seen Prim's older sister before, at the harvest feast, and even then he found the archer to be the most beautiful young woman in Tolv. And yet, when the monk opens the door to find Katnisse there—cheeks pink from the wind, snowflakes in her raven hair, skis on her feet and a bow on her back like the Northern goddess Skadi—the sight fills him with so much warmth, he almost forgets it is winter.

Then a gust of cold wind blows, and he remembers.

"Come in," he says. "The jarl is expecting you."

She flinches when he moves to unbind her skis. "I can do it myself," she says curtly, as she removes the planks of pinewood from her boots.

"I am a thrall," he says simply. "This is what thralls do."

Eyfri bustles over to them. "Let the boy help, Katnisse."

Grudgingly, she lets him take her pack. Peeta sets it on a nearby table—a wooden board laid on top of trestles—and, under Eyfri's supervision, begins to take out the contents one by one.

Katnisse watches him. "Of what use is mistletoe?"

Eyfri reaches up and touches Katnisse's face. "I pray to Freyja that you will never know." She smiles sadly. "Of course, when you marry Gæl—"

Katnisse frowns. "I am not marrying Gæl."

"Why ever not? He is handsome and brave. You are well suited to each other, and he has proposed to you twice over."

"I have sworn not to marry anyone."

The jarl's wife sighs. "The day will come, Katnisse Eyvindsdottir, that you will feel such a terrible love-longing in your heart, and you will regret the words you have spoken today."

"Marriage means children," Katnisse says. "I do not want to have children of my own."

"Then perhaps you should shave your head and swear yourself to the Christian god," Eyfri snaps. She turns to her thrall. "See her out, Peeta. The two of you have much in common."

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Haymið pays Katnisse for the medicine and for her trouble. He even saddles up one of his horses for her. "You should not ski home in this weather."

Katnisse knows he is lying. The weather is not any worse, or better, than it was a few hours ago. Haymið only wishes to make amends for his wife's behavior. He is the son of a farmer—it was through his cunning that he won glory in the raids and became a chieftain—and he is not as easily offended as one highborn.

"How shall I return her to you?" she asks, one hand on the mare's black mane. _A horse will be the first thing I buy,_ she thinks, _after my first raid._

"Peeta will ride with you," the jarl says.

"You trust him not to escape?"

Haymið shrugs. "Where would he go?"

And so they ride, Katnisse astride the horse and Peeta on a mule, away from the jarl's house and the town, to the other side of Tolv fjord.

Peeta is the first to speak. "Do not take Eyfri's words to heart. She is at her wits' end. Their sons are restless in the winter."

 _How strange this thrall is,_ Katnisse thinks. _He speaks without being spoken to. He is trusted to return with the jarl's horse. He does not even have the shorn hair that is the mark of the male slave._

"I do not care what Eyfri thinks," she says stiffly. "I have sworn what I have sworn."

Peeta chuckles. "Perhaps she is right," he says in jest. "Perhaps it is you and I who are suited to one another."

Katnisse scowls.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

A few moments pass in silence before Katnisse's curiosity gets the better of her. "It is true, then. You are a priest of Christ."

Peeta lifts his hand to the back of his head, where his tonsure is growing out. "A monk, yes."

"Prim sends her greetings."

"I am honored that I am in your sister's thoughts. We spoke of healing, of the differences between the plants in Panym and those in the North, not too long ago."

Katnisse nods thoughtfully. "Your god hanged on a tree," she observes. "Like Odin."

Peeta shakes his head. "No," he says. "Not like Odin. Odin knew great wisdom came at the cost of great suffering, and hanged himself for his own selfish gain. Christ endured agony on the cross, that He might save those who believe in Him. He is selfless, and kind, and just."

"Like Baldur, then," she says, naming Odin's favorite son. Fair Baldur, bright Baldur, the god of light and justice, killed by an arrow that the trickster Loki fashioned out of mistletoe and placed in the hands of Baldur's blind brother Hodur.

"Well… yes. But Christ is so much more." Peeta smiles wistfully. "He is not one of many gods. The Christians believe theirs"—he swallows—" _ours_ is the one true God."

"It must be lonely for him, to be the only god. Perhaps that is why Christians have so many rules, so many laws. Your god has nothing else to do."

Peeta knows there is no malice in her words, yet they sting more than his wound. "Is that any worse than the gods of the North? Odin, Thor, Freyr, Freyja—they take no interest in those who worship them. Warriors are so desperate for the gods' attention, all they desire in life is an impressive death in battle."

"Do not presume to know the minds of those who go a-viking." Katnisse's tone is as harsh and as biting as the winter. "Do not presume to know why I"—her breath catches in her throat—"why _anyone_ would wish to go on the raids."

"The raids in which you plunder my land and kill my people?"

Peeta regrets the words as soon as they come out of his mouth. The Northmen have been kind to him; for this he is grateful. His life was spared when they learned he spoke their language. With every passing day, Haymið treats him more as a steward than a slave. Even if Peeta is a captive here, in many ways he is happier than he was in Panym, where the mad old king with the snow white hair knows nothing but to raise taxes and take young men and women as tribute. Tributes never to be seen or heard from again. Tributes like Peeta's own beloved brother.

"It was not my intention to cause offense," he says quietly. "Only God has the right to judge. I am sorry."

Katnisse sets her jaw and looks straight ahead. She does not speak.

He searches his mind for something else to say. "As for Odin and the rest, I have no doubt that they are impressive… beings," he tells her. "Finn taught me one of the songs about Odin. I sing it to the jarl's sons, sometimes, before they go to sleep."

The furrows in Katnisse's brow grow deeper.

"You do not believe me? I will show you." He takes a deep breath. " _Are you, are you coming to the tree? Yggdrasil, where Odin hung_ —"

She cuts him off. "That is enough," she says brusquely. Then, softly: "I accept your apology."

Peeta is glad that she is not looking at him. "As you wish."

They ride the rest of the way without another word.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

Katnisse does not often allow herself the luxury of grief, but when Peeta opens his mouth to sing, her nose begins to sting.

Her father had been a skald, the greatest warrior-poet the people of Tolv had ever known. He could speak of the great deeds of men, and the glory of the gods, like no-one had before. It was said that when he sang, even the birds stopped to listen. That was how he came to be known as Eyvind the Bird-Silencer.

Surely her father is in Valhalla now, drinking the mead of poetry with Odin and Bragi. But she finds little comfort in it. She recalls the words she spoke to Gæl Hallvardson, the night that the funeral pyres blazed for their fathers. _My family needs my father more than the gods do._

To distract herself, she spends the rest of the journey listening with her hunter's ears for the sounds of nature. Today, however, there are none to be heard. On this winter day, a hush has fallen upon the earth. A blanket of white descended from the skies the night before, dampening all sound until there was nothing but that special silence that follows the fallen snow. To Katnisse, it feels even quieter now than it was earlier this morning, when all she could hear was her measured breathing and the whisper of her pinewood skis across the snow.

Even this reminds her of Eyvind, of everything she has lost, of that unspeakable sorrow.

A tear escapes from the corner of her eye, only to freeze on her wind-chapped cheek.

It would not do to dwell on her father.

**.**

**ooo**

**.**

At home, Prim notices that Katnisse is even more taciturn than ever. "What is wrong? Did something happen on your journey?"

"No, I—" Katnisse's throat thickens. "I was only thinking of Father."

Prim puts her arms around her sister. "I miss him, too. But we must always look forward. That is what he would want us to do."

Katnisse buries her head in Prim's shoulder.

Later, she asks: "The priest, we will see him at the solstice, will we not? When we sacrifice and begin the Yule feast?"

Prim smiles. "I believe so." She pauses, and adds: "Peeta once told me that, in Panym, they celebrate the birth of the Christ God a few days after."

Katnisse nods. She will make amends, when she sees the priest again. Even though he is but a thrall and is owed no apology, she hopes he will accept hers.

"I am much looking forward to the feast, in fact," Prim continues. "I wonder if Anni is with child. If she is, no doubt Finn will be even more full of poetry than ever."

A slow smile tugs at the corner of Katnisse's mouth. "Someone must tell Finnbjorn Oddarson the truth—that he is not the skald we are looking for."

"Perhaps," Prim agrees. Her eyes sparkle when she says: "Perhaps it is you."

Katnisse shakes her head resolutely. It has been a long time since she last sang—a long time since anything flooded her heart with so much happiness, it flowed out into the world as song. "A skald's life is not my destiny."

That night, as the sisters and their mother get ready for bed, Katnisse thinks of the priest. She is the first to admit that she does not make friends easily. But perhaps, one day, she will tell Peeta more about her gods. Perhaps he will tell her more about his.

Prim tilts her head and looks curiously at her sister. "Are you humming, Katnisse?"

Her cheeks grow warm. "Yes," she says defensively. "What of it?"

Prim unties the strip of leather from Katnisse's braid. "Nothing." She smiles.

It was the very last song their father taught her. But, for the first time, the song fills Katnisse with something like hope—with a feeling like the first dandelion in the spring, like life-giving fire in the dead of winter.

 

_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree?_

_Yggdrasil, where Odin hung_

' _Til rune-magic he did see._

_He said: "Nine nights I have stayed,_

_Sacrificed myself to me._

_No price is too high to pay_

_For the wisdom of the tree."_

 

**~ENDA~**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Katnisse and Peeta's story continues in [_Enthralled_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660476).
> 
> Fans of History Channel's _Vikings_ will have guessed that Athelstan inspired me to make Peeta a monk. 
> 
> It is unlikely that women regularly joined the raids in real life, but the ladies of THG are such badass fighters that it just made sense to have shieldmaidens in this AU.
> 
> Tolv is Danish/Norwegian/Swedish for "twelve".
> 
> Mistletoe was a fertility aid, among other things. Even though Viking!Effie has her hands full with her sons, she still wants to have a daughter.


End file.
